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In re Greenspan: if the Fed prints $5 trillion of new money and puts it in a hole in the ground, it has no impact on the economy (unless it somehow influences expectations). If the fed doesn’t print $10 billion of new money but someone puts $10 billion in a hole in the ground (or generally takes it out of circulation for many years), that’s contractionary. Extra equity for banks held in the form of dollars — I assume they wouldn’t hold it in piles of factories or mining equipment — doesn’t tie up real resources, and would presumably be counteracted by the Fed in terms of its nominal effects; it would only make a difference if people expected it to actually enter circulation, i.e. if banks were expected to start crashing, i.e. exactly when you want people to expect looser monetary policy.
I support bank capital requirements to stabilize the financial system, but if you want to support them as an automatic monetary stabilizer, that’s okay, too.
Every time today that I’ve re-read salad platform head I giggle out loud. Thanks for the laugh today!
Hmmmm, Americans eat that few greens? Only Australia is worse, as asking for a salad means they put a piece of lettuce on your burger.
Also those “Fresh” express are days/week old. Why is that more convenient than the 4 minutes it takes to make the salad freshly cut as your steak cooks?
And WOW, Greenspan got quite a shellacking in the commentary.
My favourite, because it made me laugh:
“What’s really missing in the A-List is an article by Donald Trump or Sarah Palin. “